A3 • Friday, January 25, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com
Jellyfi sh show up by the hundreds on North Coast
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
An incomplete list of
things that have recently
washed up on North Coast
beaches: a giant octopus,
dead whales, pyrosomes,
Japanese fi shing boats, hun-
dreds of Humboldt squid,
so much bull kelp, so much
plastic.
And now, earlier this
week, moon jellyfi sh as far
as the eye could see around
Haystack Rock.
Large
numbers
of
stranded jellyfi sh are not
an unusual sight on local
beaches, especially after
storms or during times of
strong waves and seasonal
upwelling, the Haystack
Rock Awareness Program
noted on Facebook.
Moon jellyfi sh are just
one type of jellyfi sh that
shows up frequently. Pacifi c
sea nettles, which do sting,
are a common fi nd. These
jellies are yellow-brown
with a sort of frilled edge
when nestled in the sand.
Tiny comb jellies will dot
The Haystack Rock Awareness
Program noted that jellies like
the Pacifi c sea nettle do wash
up and can still sting even
after the animal is dead.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
The Haystack Rock Awareness Program recommends avoiding jellyfi sh that wash up on local
beaches.
the beach, looking like
oversized water droplets
frozen in place.
Most years, rafts of Vel-
lela vellela — or by-the-
wind sailors that fl oat on
the water’s surface and are
propelled across the ocean
thanks to a triangular sail
— blow onto the beach
and carpet the sand. They
bleach white in the sun,
send up a briny stink and
are munched upon by fool-
hardy dogs.
In recent years, the
North Coast has hosted
unexpected creatures like
pyrosomes. The little-stud-
ied rubbery, tube-shaped,
semitranslucent
colonies
showed up en masse on
beaches across Oregon, and
especially around Cannon
Beach and Ecola State Park,
in 2017. More common in
warmer waters, pyrosomes
confounded
researchers
and clogged up commercial
fi shing gear.
Oregon researchers con-
tinue to study the role of jel-
lyfi sh in marine food webs
and their potential impact
on coastal fi shing.
Jellyfi sh may drift grace-
fully and dreamily when in
water, but on land they are
gelatinous blobs sometimes
spiked with intricate colors.
They are always a fascinat-
ing fi nd for beachgoers and
tempting to poke or even
pick up.
The Haystack Rock
Awareness Program noted
that moon jellyfi sh do not
sting most people, but jel-
lies like the Pacifi c sea net-
tle do wash up and can still
sting even after the animal
is dead.
“So that’s why we rec-
ommend not handling jel-
lies unless you’re 1,000
percent sure what it is,” the
organization wrote.
Boone behind bill to tighten public records requests
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
In one of her last legisla-
tive actions before retiring,
state Rep. Deborah Boone
recommended a bill that
would tighten requirements
for public records requests.
State Sen. Betsy John-
son, D-Scappoose, intro-
duced Senate Bill 609 at the
session’s open this month on
Boone’s behalf.
Under state law, pub-
lic records requests can be
broad, covering an entire
topic rather than a specifi c
piece of information.
The bill Boone supports
seeks to tighten the process,
requiring people requesting
records to specify “with par-
ticularity” a description of
the records being sought and
how they will be used.
“It’s to hopefully winnow
out the fi shing expeditions
and allow the legitimate
(requests) to move for-
ward,” said Boone, a Dem-
ocrat who represented Can-
non Beach in the House for
14 years.
Boone didn’t point to a
specifi c example that made
her want to introduce the
legislation. There have been
multiple public records
requests made of public
offi cials over the past sev-
eral years, and they can
take a great deal of time and
money, she said.
Senate Bill 609 does not
specify how much partic-
ularity would be needed to
describe records or how they
will be used. Boone said she
will travel to Salem at the
end of the month to work on
clarifying the language.
While she understands
that journalists often need
to capture a breadth of
information, maybe they
wouldn’t have to be so broad
if they “would just be hon-
est and say, ‘This is what
I’m trying to get at,’” Boone
said. “I get that they want to
be vague to capture every-
thing, but maybe they don’t
have to.”
Tiff any Butler/The Daily Astorian
Outgoing state Rep. Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, left,
was honored by state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose,
during a Clatsop Economic Development Resources business
awards ceremony last year.
Ginger McCall, Ore-
gon’s public records advo-
cate, released a report last
year that found governments
often unreasonably delay
releasing public records or
charge too much for access.
The public records law
has also been criticized for
the large number of exemp-
tions — more than 500 —
that have been carved out
over the years.
The bill has drawn crit-
icism from journalists,
including The Oregonian’s
Gordon Friedman, who fi rst
reported on the legislation
and balked at the require-
ment of stating with partic-
ularity the records he seeks.
“As a requester I often
can’t do that because I don’t
know what records exist
— only that I would like to
request records pertaining to
a topic,” he wrote on Twitter.
Boone’s legislation is one
of 11 new public records
bills this legislative session.
Others would reduce pub-
lic records fees from state
agencies by half, award
attorney fees against pub-
lic bodies that don’t respond
to requests in a timely man-
ner, explore creating a chief
privacy offi cer position
and prohibit using personal
email for offi cial business.
The state House on Mon-
day also passed several new
rules related to transparency.
The fi rst will require
all amendments submit-
ted to policy bills bear the
name of a member or stake-
holder group. The second
will require that all com-
mittee bills bear the name
of a member or stakeholder
group that has requested the
bill, effective Jan. 22. The
third will require at least one
hour to pass during the short
legislative session before
the House can act on a bill
returned with changes from
the Senate.
“This is a positive step to
bring greater transparency to
the business of the House,”
said state Rep. Paul Holvey,
D-Eugene, in a news release.
“These rule changes are in
the public interest and will
provide Oregonians a bet-
ter understanding of which
legislators and stakehold-
ers are proposing bills in the
Capitol.”
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